looks at life for women of a certain age. Observations and wry stories that might ring bells with some.

Monday, 18 April 2011

Menopause

There is only one way to get through menopause and all the insecurities that it initially brings and that is to chat with other women. I was shelving books at the library yesterday, before opening time, and one of the staff confided to me that she thinks she is bordering on the menopause, aged 46.I’ve know her for some years and she has always been a positive, bubbly personality. Now however, she says she has become anxious, worrying about things that have never bothered her before, can’t sleep at night, her brain in turmoil, not sleeping until she hears her kids’keys in the lock, worrying about anything and everything.She is struggling with body image.I’ve been through all this and come out the other side, an older, wiser person, but this familiar anxiety has stayed with me and has to be kept firmly under control or it becomes paralysing.We agreed that the worst part is trying to steer one’s way through the minefield of medical choices about what to do, what to take, should one try the ‘natural’ way or take hormones?The trouble is that everything to do with one’s health has become a personal choice: one has to take decisions and balance this against that, basically on one’s own. And medical science is constantly changing its mind: “We used to think,....we now think”.And so we go forward this way or that way. But go on, we must. In that there is no choice. ..... And if you haven't seen, "Menopause, The Musical", you absolutely must! If every 'stuff' was shared in the most hilarious way, this is it! I saw it in South Africa.